Introduction
by Xx.LoveIsABlessing.xX
Summary: 100 Themes Writing Challenge, Heartland Style. #1 : Introduction. Important Author's Note thingy inside!


**# 1 : Introduction**

Fourteen year old Amy Fleming frowned as she entered the kitchen of her home at Heartland to find a sixteen year old brown haired boy sitting at the kitchen table, talking and laughing with her mother over glasses of ice water.

"Hi Mom." Amy said as she walked into the room, setting her backpack by the doorway and going to the fridge. She made sure to keep her voice neutral, as if she wasn't curious about the cute boy that was sitting with her mom.

"Oh hi sweetie. Come here there's someone I want you to meet." Her mother, Marion, sent her a warm smile.

Amy grabbed a cold coke from the fridge and went to sit beside her mother at the table, the boy sending her a shy, sweet smile. His eyes startled Amy; she'd never seen such a vibrant shade of green before. Like two emeralds.

"Amy, meet Ty Baldwin. He's going to start working here tomorrow. Ty, this is my daughter, Amy." Marion introduced and, while Amy wasn't so sure about how she felt about sharing Heartland with a stranger, she sent Ty a small smile that he returned just as hesitantly.

"Its nice to meet you, Amy." He said.

"It's nice to meet you too, Ty." She said and opened her coke, taking a drink before standing up from the table, intent on going to her room to think over how she felt about this Ty boy that her mother had just introduced her to.

"Amy, would you do me a favor honey?" Marion asked.

"Sure thing, Mom. What is it?" Amy asked, turning back to her mother and waiting expectantly.

"I left some paperwork down at the barn and I need to get it filled out so that I can mail it in the morning. Would you go get it, please?" Marion asked and Amy nodded.

"Sure." She said.

Heading down to the barn, Amy's mind went over what had just happened.

Her mom had hired a new worker, a cute boy by the name of Ty Baldwin that was going to start working there tomorrow.

Amy recognized Ty from school, but she didn't know anything about him really. He was two years older than her, so the chance to hang out had never really arisen for them. They'd never had a class together, not even study hall.

Entering the barn, Amy paused for a second to consider where her mother could have left the paperwork. One would assume that it would be in the barn office, but that wasn't always the case here at Heartland. Amy had literally had to pull paperwork from a horse's mouth one time. Since then they'd made sure to never take it into the stalls, there was too strong of a chance that they'd leave it in there on accident.

Deciding to start in the office, Amy started in that direction, only to pause when she heard the sound of boots coming up behind her. Turning, she raised an eyebrow at Ty as he walked up to her.

"I thought maybe you could use some help finding the papers." Ty said with a small shrug, not meeting her eyes directly.

Amy smiled at him. She could tell when a person was nervous, and Ty was practically radiating nerves at that moment.

"Sure, thank you." She said and lead the way to the office. He followed a few steps behind her, looking around as if he was trying to memorize every detail. Amy turned back to him, "Mom's shown you the barns, hasn't she?"

Ty nodded, "Yeah, she gave me a tour and everything. I met the horses."

Amy nodded, "What do you think of them?" She asked.

"I don't think the buckskin one, um I think his name was Sundance? I don't think he likes me very much." Ty said with a grimace.

"Sundance is new here. When we got him about a month ago he was really skinny and he'd been abused for a long time so he had big time trust issues. He's just now starting to stop kicking and biting at us when we feed him or move him to the pastures." Amy explained as she started looking around on the desk.

"Oh. Poor guy." Ty said quietly as he looked on the shelves on one side of the room.

"Yeah." Amy whispered her agreement as she sorted through some memos on the desk. "Do you have any idea just what the paperwork is that we're looking for?"

Ty shook his head, "Not really. I don't remember even seeing any paperwork when she gave me the tour, but then again I guess I was a little bit distracted from that."

Amy smiled at him, "The horses really are something, aren't they?"

Ty smiled back, "Yeah. I can't wait to start working with them. I know it's going to take some time before I'm allowed to do that, but I still can't wait."

"Mom'll get you ready for it quicker than you think." Amy told him, stopping her search to face him directly.

Ty did the same, "You really think so? I've never really been around horses before, my Dad's not a fan of them to be honest."

Amy frowned, "Well that's sad, we'll just have to change his opinion of them. And yeah, Mom will have you working with them one on one before you know it. She must see potential in you or I don't think she would have given you a job."

"You really think so?" Ty asked hopefully, a small smile coming to his features.

Amy nodded, grinning at him, "Yeah. Just you wait, soon you'll be riding like a pro and maybe you can even compete like I do."

"What competitions do you compete in?" Ty asked curiously.

"I'm a jumper. Sundance, he's my horse and I'm hoping that someday I'll be able to take him to a show. He can jump really high, believe it or not. He proved that to us the day we brought him home and he jumped out of the pasture." Amy said and laughed at the memory. It had been terrifying at the time, but now she could look back and laugh at the shock she'd felt when the skinny yellow horse had raced towards the fence and seemingly taken flight as he cleared the fence with ease.

"He's big enough for it, that's for sure." Ty said and laughed. Amy tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at Ty. He froze, "What?"

"You have a nice laugh." Amy shrugged non-chalantly and turned back to her search as she felt a blush heat her cheeks. She was pleased to see, when she glanced over her shoulder, that Ty was blushing just as darkly as she was as he resumed searching the shelves. She thought she heard him say, "You do, too", but it was too quiet for her to be sure.

The next few minutes of searching were performed in silence before Amy determined that the papers were not in that room and lead Ty to the feed room to look there instead.

As they walked, a mare by the name of Vanilla stuck her head out of her stall to reach her muzzle to Ty. The palomino was always wanting to meet new people, brought to Heartland so that Marion could train her to be a jumper.

Amy smiled as Ty grinned and reached up to gently scratch Vanilla's cheek. The mare rolled up her lip in a grin and nodded her head, making Ty laugh.

"I think she likes you." Amy said and Ty blushed as he looked back at her, tearing his attention away from Vanilla. He smiled back at Amy timidly.

"You think so?"

Amy nodded, "Yep. That would be her version of flirting with you."

Ty's eyes widened in alarm and his blush darkened, making Amy laugh and walk over to him, taking his hand and pulling him away from Vanilla.

"He doesn't have time to flirt with you." She said playfully to the mare as Vanilla whinnied in protest.

Leading Ty to the feed room, Amy took a second to absorb how his hand felt in her own. His hand was bigger than hers, and very warm. She was surprised at how soft his skin was. Normally guys Ty's age would have at least a few callouses.

Reluctantly dropping Ty's hand when they entered the feed room, Amy went over to the cabinet where all the herbs were kept to start looking there. Ty stood awkwardly in the doorway a moment before deciding to check over by a stack of feedbags. He kept glancing at Amy from the corner of his eye.

The two searched in silence for a few minutes before Amy broke the silence.

"So what made you want to work here at Heartland?" She asked.

Ty took a second to answer, "I wanted to take the chance to get to be around horses." He lied. Of course he wasn't going to tell her that he'd wanted to work here because he had developed a crush on her from seeing her in school and was hoping to get to know her better.

"That's cool. I've grown up around them, so it's kind of hard for me to imagine life without them." Amy admitted. She smiled at Ty, "But I'd say you managed pretty well."

He smiled back, "Yeah I guess so."

They returned to silence for a few moments more before Ty broke the silence.

"If you ever need help with your schoolwork, I'd be happy to help you. I mean, I may not make stellar grades but I make A's and B's." Ty said, blushing again when Amy turned to look at him.

She smiled at him, "Really? Thanks! Are you any good with math? I could use a tutor there sometimes." She admitted.

"I have an A in math right now if that helps any? I guess I'm okay at it." Ty said.

"You have an A in math and you're saying you're 'okay at it'? Ty having an A in math makes you a genius to me!" Amy said and laughed, going over to him and hugging him briefly, smiling to herself when he stiffened in surprise before relaxing and reluctantly putting his arms around her to hug her back. "Thanks so much for offering to help me!"

He smiled at her softly, looking down from his height advantage, "Any time, Amy."

"Hey Ty, your mom is here to pick you up." Marion entered the feed room and raised her eyebrow as Ty and Amy hastily broke apart, both blushing a dark red. Marion smiled at them sweetly, "I found the paperwork in the kitchen, sorry I sent you guys out here on a wild goose chase."

"Not a problem, Mom. We were just getting to know each other while we worked." Amy said, smiling at Ty. He smiled back at her.

The two followed Marion out of the barn and saw Ty's mother waiting up by the house. They headed towards her car, but before he got in Ty turned to Amy.

"If you want I can help you out with math tomorrow after school?" He offered.

Amy smiled at him sweetly, "Thanks so much, Ty. I really appreciate it!" She said.

Ty smiled shyly and nodded with a mumbled, "Any time."

"I'll see you tomorrow, bye Ty." Amy said and smiled at him as he got into his Mom's car. She waved as the vehicle reversed and turned around to start up the drive. Once it was out of sight, Amy turned to her mother.

Marion grinned at her and put an arm around her daughter's shoulders, "Ty's pretty cute, huh?"

Amy blushed and smiled back at her mother, "Very cute."

The two shared a laugh as they headed into the house to start supper.

**Hi ya'll! I know it's been forever since I really uploaded anything but please be patient with me. I promise I haven't given up on any of my stories, I've just had it a little rough lately. I've nearly finished my first year of college, but I had to take out student loans to help pay for it, so that really upset me. I've got finals and had all kinds of tests so that's kept me busy. Add to that the fact that my family is really under a lot of stress right now. Our neighbors have been starting trouble again and to be honest I think my parents are at the point of divorce, so that really has me kinda upset. Please bare with me, I'm going to finish my other stories, I promise. I just had to have something new to work on and get my creativity flowing again cause I've been slipping into a bit of a depression lately. Thank the Lord I found this 100 themes writing challenge thing to get me going again.**

**Again I'm really sorry I'm taking so long guys, but I promise I'm going to try and get back in the saddle so to speak with my writing. Granted, I'm about to go home to where I won't have internet but I promise to find a way to upload. **

**Thanks so much ya'll, God Bless!**


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